The newly hatched Novye Pravye (New Right) Party is the only Russian political party inspiring at least a modicum of trust. However, it will have to work hard and long to become a real player in the Russian political arena.

Natalia Arkhangelskaya and Alexander Mekhanik

Vain efforts
With each passing day, every event in Russian party politics after the December elections seems to lead us further and further from a real multiparty environment. The victorious Edinaya Rossiya (United Russia) is mainly preoccupied with putting out the smallest sparks of independence or deviation from one-man rule that are flaring up in various Russian regions and smoldering at the federal level.
The Communists have attempted to assume the role of taking care of a society virtually set adrift, but have failed to exploit this gold mine. The Communist Party is in essence the party of the former authorities, and thus it genetically has little to distinguish itself from Edinaya Rossiya or its related parties. The Communist leaders have been spending the CPSU’s rich inheritance for a decade and have ended up empty handed. The small fry like Rodina (Motherland) who scored a success in December also have few prospects for the same reason. They are trying to reinforce their electoral base by buying up manpower from political failures, not through painstaking work.
And finally, we have the parties that fell flat on their face in December and are trying get back on their feet, such as the SPS (Union of Rightist Forces), Committee 2008, and Khakamada’s Svobodnaya Rossiya (Free Russia). Their plan of actions is the same: they are trying to rebuild using old assets, both their own and others’. In other words, all the prominent political forces are one way or another busy reshuffling the old party pack established in the late 1980s-early 1990s. None of the current parties plans any new grassroots campaigns. No one seems to remember that even these pitiful parties were only possible thanks to their work with electorate.
Skeptics believe that nothing similar to what was happened in Russia back then can happen now. The unprecedented surge of popular activism was caused by major historical changes, as Russians as a nation are very apolitical when all is quiet. The situation has settled down, and everybody has lost interest in parties, elections, and politics in general.
However, there is another view. Optimists are sure that the time has not passed in vain, and today, on the contrary, the public is firmer and more conscious in its political beliefs. They argue that if dynamic political figures capable of the heroic deeds of 15 years ago could be found, Russians would again get interested in politics. Moreover, the process would advance much faster, and a new political structure would be more purposeful and steadfast.

The first free generation
All the above said about Russian party politics explains why even the faint signs of life shown by the Novye Pravye (NP) have made an impact. This party first appeared at the federal level about a month ago when its constitutional convention took place. The new project inspires conservative optimism for two reasons. To begin with, it’s the first attempt in the last decade not to exploit old things but to build something from scratch. Secondly, Kremlin powerbrokers have no hand in the party, no matter what the media and other politicians may say. These are NP’s fundamental distinctions from a host of other parties.
A political movement called “Pervoye Svobodnoye Pokolenie” (The First Free Generation), or PSP, which emerged back in 1996, became the base for Novye Pravye. “The PSP was set up by students from a variety of higher educational institutions,” relates Vladimer Shmelev, the leader of Novye Pravye. “By that time the main message was already that there is no party in Russia that represents our views. For us, fundamental issues, such as freedom, property rights, and the Russian state, were in harmony and didn’t conflict. Playing democratic freedoms off patriotism and traditions off national culture seemed absurd to us. Now and then, we had the peculiar feeling that Soviet patriots were competing with their American counterparts in the political arena. And we considered ourselves Russian patriots.”
Nevertheless, PSP decided to join SPS. They were persuaded by statements made by the then leader of the right, Sergei Kirienko, who argued that the majority of Russia’s population in fact shared the SPS’s ideas, with which PSP members fully agreed. However, after the success in 1999, the snobbery and vicious elitism long characteristic to the “old rights” came into full flower, and on the eve of December 2003, Gaidar openly admitted that SPS was the party of big capital. According to Shmelev, by ignoring the fact that an entire generation of new citizens had grown up in Russia during perestroika and market reforms, the rightists’ leaders were in fact appealing to a disappearing electorate.

A response to the right challenge
Today, Novye Pravye flatly rules out the possibility of forming a coalition with the SPS, despite the fact that their elder colleagues are now admitting their mistakes. Irina Khakamada, for example, agrees that the party’s top politicians should take a back seat, because their time has passed (while she herself intends to stay and even lead the new party). She also admits that SPS slogans need to change. Shmelev believes that the problem of the “old rights” should be solved in a more radical way, and that it’s simply time for them to stop calling themselves the right. Right-wing parties are usually champions of a strong state with a firm faith in tradition. This is not true of SPS.
The Novye Pravye Party has already understood that independence is an expensive luxury. NP leaders consider statements in the press that their project is another one of the presidential administration’s inventions as payment. They are paying for the contradictory nature they demonstrated when working with the “old right” revivalists. Those on the old right insistently persuaded their junior colleagues not to rush to register the party. It’s clear why: this kind of resource, especially a new one that has yet to irritate voters or remind them of previous errors and failures, doesn’t grow on trees. There are a many who would like to claim it as their own. It is fair to admit, though, that the resource in question is not so much a possibility as a real thing.

Casting the net
At the abovementioned NP convention a 16-person leading committee was elected. The average age of this group is 30 and it includes regional legislative assembly deputies, current and former officials in regional and municipal administrations, entrepreneurs, lawyers, and journalists.
Participation in legislative and executive activity, in the first place, at the local level is another of NP’s fundamental stances. This is their intended road to power, one region at a time. And once proportional representation is introduced for municipal and regional elections, this will be accomplished through party lists.
The new rights began to form a nationwide network of new leaders back when they were still part of the SPS. These are people involved with specific issues related to the public’s needs in their area. They are joined by a large group of older people with political experience who have yet to find their party.
The search for supporters is going on using a variety of means, including the internet. Talking to regional legislators, for example, has also proven very productive. Young people are singled out from among the deputies and contacted. As a rule, new acquaintances turn out to be ideologically close – they are virtually ready-made fellow-in-arms. This approach fails only when a deputy was already happily part of a political scheme. But even some of these people have been brought around.
This experience proves that the NP has chosen the right tactics for building a party. They are working from the ground up in more remote parts of Russia where the central authorities’ grip is not so strong. By way of comparison: out of 450 Duma deputies, only fifteen to twenty are not playing the federal government’s game. Thus, the focus on young legislators as the least involved in existing power schemes seems promising.

Victims of virtue
Our faults are part and parcel of our virtues. Similarly, the problems NP will soon face will arise from the very virtues of their project. The time factor poses the greatest threat. Party building is slow by definition. A party, just like a good business, requires daily effort over the course of at least two decades, as history demonstrates.
It’s a big question who the “free generation,” full of enthusiasm, will reach the end. The rights’ leader, now 24 years old, is not scared by the long haul ahead. However, the older people, to whom the NP is trustingly opening its doors today, could become a source of conflict regardless of good intentions. Politicians are public people, and they need publicity. Not everyone has the patience to wait twenty or thirty years to be recognized by the Russian electorate. This especially applies to those getting on in years. This is further complicated by the existence of tried-and-true methods for accelerating the process, say, by borrowing money from wealthy supporters for a TV ad campaign. These supporters, however, will demand a host of small services in turn (NP intends to serve society and can therefore only borrow funds from those who share their ideas).
There are other approaches, such as putting someone famous like pop star Fillip Kirkorov in the number three slot on the party list. Or perhaps some big-name politician, one of the generals without armies who are especially plentiful among the ruins of the old right parties. However, these old leaders will merely use the party as the pedestal of a monument to themselves and sell the party’s resources both wholesale and retail. If this doesn’t suit the NP, they will have no choice but to do everything themselves, patiently and without generational or ideological arrogance. And even if the party doesn’t work, its activists can at least take comfort in the fact that thanks to their efforts, political life in Russia had entered a new, more advanced phase.

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